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Read the book that Kirkus Reviews called: "A complex, witty page-turner, ideal for YA fans of scandal and romance."

Don’t love your enemy. Declare war on him.

Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.

All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter's never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he's never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.

Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.

The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.The game board: East Summit High.The reward: Something neither of them expected.

Previously published as Lovely Vicious, this fully revised and updated edition is full of romance, intrigue, and laugh-out-loud moments.

Love Me Never was hilarious and a little bit ridiculous, which made it hella fun to read! But first, a quick warning: there is domestic abuse and PTSD discussed in this book.

Isis, New Girl, is invited to the senior queen bee’s first party of school year, where she proceeds to punch the hottest guy in school and kidnap the prettiest girl. In all fairness, the pretty girl was drunk and needed to get home, and the hot guy was mean to the pretty girl. All in all, an amusing first chapter. This sets off a war between Isis and Hot Guy Jack, a battle of wits and wills. And it was highly entertaining.

Isis was very confident on the outside, which resulted in lots of amusing internal monologues and external retorts. And sometimes those internal monologues were accidentally said out loud, but she gave ZERO fucks. I LOL’d a lot.

I zap a revenge-suspect with a glare, and she veers off course with her handful of shaving cream. That’s right, keep walking. There’ll be no shaving-cream-on-Kayla’s-lovely-face incident today, thank you very much. Or, if there is, I will shave you. Down to the bone.

“You’re making threats aloud,” Jack deadpans.

“It’s good for business,” I chime.

(Guys, I totally have internal monologues like this. Isis IS me. I AM Isis.)

However, she was hiding a lot on the inside. She honestly believed that she was unlovable. Unkissable. Ugly and repulsive and destined to be alone. I wish I could say it was extreme for her to think that, but how many of you have thought that? Hell, even though I have a boyfriend, I sometimes fall into that space in my mind, and it was a lot worse when I was younger.

Love isn’t one of my strengths. Dating definitely isn’t one of them, either. I like to think being genuinely nice is one of my strengths, though, you know, minus punching guys who deserve it. So I’ll be nice. I’ll keep myself away from everybody else. No one wants ugly. Even if they did, it wouldn’t be good for them. I’m loud and angry and sarcastic. No one wants that. Nameless taught me that, too. He taught me to spare everybody from myself. That’s true kindness.

(FYI, I am loud and angry and sarcastic, too.)

Jack had another way of hiding a pretty big secret. He simply blocked everyone out, kept them at arm’s length. And not just the girls, who seemed to swarm around him like mosquitoes. (I mean, he was gorgeous, and he had that whole brooding thing going for him.) He didn’t interact with anyone. Underneath the cold exterior (hence the nickname ‘Ice Prince’), he was actually very caring about certain things. But he was also hiding a bit of a dark side, which I won’t lie about – it kinda scared me.

I felt like I went on a bit of a journey with Isis. At first, I didn’t like Jack. I thought he was rude and awful. But as I started to read more about him, especially the few chapters from his POV, I began to understand him a bit more. And then I started getting a bit swoony. HE WAS SO ADORABLE AT TIMES. Like when he chose a particular costume for a particular reason. UGH. My heart. He and Isis had this great chemistry, both being observant and strategic, but with different approaches. Jack was cold and calculating, while Isis was equally calculating, but she also made bold moves rather quickly. This led to some pretty bizarre twists, and I can honestly say that what I expected this book to be like and what it ended up being like are two very different things.

The ending was insane. I need the next book right now. I was genuinely confused how this book would turn into a satisfying trilogy. In most romance series, each book focuses on a couple that end up together by the end of the book, but Lovely Vicious isn’t like that. I was wondering the whole way through how Wolf planned to stretch out the story of Jack and Isis over three books, but I shouldn’t have worried. I’m still not 100% sure where this is going to go, but I can tell you I’m definitely tuning in for the next book, what with the twist in the final chapter. (By the way, MY HEART BROKE, GUYS.)

I HAVE TALKED ENOUGH ABOUT THESE TWO. Ok. Other things. I really liked Wren. He was weird but also adorbs. Kayla… I think I didn’t like her at first, but she grew on me. I wish she’d been a bit more developed though, as we don’t really learn too much about her other than that she’s infatuated with Jack and is fashionable??? My heart broke for Isis’ mom, and I loved Jack’s mom. (Anyone else pick up on the fact that Jack’s mom was a bit like Isis…as in he’s destined to be with his mom?)

What kept this from being a five-star for me was that it was a little too unbelievable. These characters are 17, and the Big Things that happened in their past happened were at 12 and 14 respectively. The event when Isis was 14 I could just about understand, but I really thought it was a bit much for the local gang to do what they did as preteens. No, just no. Couldn’t buy it.

I will also admit to being a little annoyed that Isis lost a lot of weight and only then made friends. Part of me wishes that, sure, she could have lost a bit of weight, and I could understand why she did it, but why couldn’t she be overweight and still be desirable?

BUT I love clever characters. And I love snarky characters. So I loved this book. It was weird and wonderful and I need the rest of the series right now. I’m also convinced I share a consciousness with Isis. And have a crush on Jack. But am a little scared of him. If only my therapist could read this.

Fun fact: I started off giving this book 4 stars, but after further thought, the flaws were outweighed by how much fun I had reading, that I’ve upgraded it to 4.5 stars. Please, please, please Entangled… I need the next book. Please. It’s too good.

Rating breakdown

Plot

Characters

World-building

Pacing

Writing

Cover

Overall:

Goodreads updates

As you can tell, the updates sort of died, but that’s because a) it was very late, b) I was sick and c) I was so engrossed.

One response to “#BookReview: Love Me Never by Sara Wolf”

This sounds awesome!! I love snarky, sarcastic characters and I’m soo interested in this story! I also don’t get why the MC had to lose weight first to be desirable, that’s sorta sucky because it’s just a further promulgation of the fact that we’re not desirable just the way we are. But, meh, whatevs, lol. We can’t have everything right! Lol.

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